Meet The Woolly Bullies

Colour me glad…

t’s an idea that started back in 2005, in Texas, when a bunch of avid knitters had more leftover wool than they knew what to do with.

And so, Houston mum Magda Sayeg knit a cover for the front door knob of her shop, and started a Texas tradition.

In truth, the mildly eccentric habit of knitting jumpers, gloves and hats for inanimate objects goes back a few decades, with artists such as Bill Davenport and Shanon Shollian happily mixing the weird and the woolly together since the 1990s. And being mildly eccentric, naturally, this heartwarming – and statue-warming – expression of silliness has made it all the way to Greystones.

Since Wednesday, such Greystones landmarks as the Beach Bear and the Meridian Horse have been wrapping up for a cold snap that only they seem to know about. Head down to the harbour though, and that’s when the pure beauty and joy of yarnbombing will really hit you.

It’s all the work of the mighty Delgany Irish Countrywomen Association, these diligent nutty knitters having decided to transform Greystones over the first two weeks of June, just for the sublime surrealism of it all.

Not that this frivolous folly is purely for fun. The ladies are also hoping to raise money for Children’s Mental Health at Temple Street Foundation. And they’ll be rattling those buckets at the official launch of Yarnbomb 2019 down at the harbour on Saturday morning, from 10am.

In the meantime, we caught up with Janet, Mary, Ann and Brendan to find out how the feck all this came together…

You can check out John McGowan’s gallery of woolly shots here. Special shout-out to Susan O’Shea and Ruby Crean, no longer with us, and whose tribute trees bookend the magnificent habour display.